Wood selection guide

Questions while selecting wood

The agony of choice! Do I select by reason of tonal or visual aspects?
Rest assured: It is ok either way!

One does not need to be embarrassed about choosing a wood type simply because of its beautiful grain or color. Appearance is a most important element – the guitar must have visual appeal! Not least because this will tempt you to reach for it often. But appearance is a very subjective matter; everyone has their own individual preferences. For this reason we will not go into the issue of visual wood characteristics for now.

With the selection of woods for a custom shop guitar, however, there are tonal qualities by which one might 'compose' an instrument and influence its ultimate voice. We would like to assist in this regard. 
Our comments relate primarily to the woods to be used for back, sides and soundboard (top). We will also demonstrate the woods which can be used for decorative elements but their influence on tone will be negligible.

Should you have queries relating to the tonal aspects of the body shapes, please see the section "Selection by Body Shape" in the Guitar Overview.